Penn Satire, Since 1899

I’m Just A Bill

I got my political education the way everyone did: watching Schoolhouse Rock and cheating on high school civics tests.1 But now, as a powerful, highly paid, employee at a lobbyist firm, I have learned there is a bit more to passing a bill than Schoolhouse Rocky let on.2

A bill begins when a single downtrodden soul who to make the world a better place. To wit, a long abuse Health Care CEO who wants to be allowed to terminate people’s coverage once he learns he actually has to pay for it. But right now, the big bad federal government says he has to actually provide the service he promised in his promotional material.

But this CEO has a dream, so he passed that dream, along with $450,000 cash and another $20,000 in pure uncut cocaine to a lobbying firm’s Managing Partner. The partner, frustrated to have his golf round with his business associate3 interrupted, takes a long toke on his $100 dollar bill cigar4 and passes that dream, now smelling only a little like fire and brimstone to his Legal Specialist.

This man’s soul has long since withered and died, but with the wit and cunning of a man who has successfully lobbied for a bill requiring all baby toys to contain 80% asbestos. 5 Knowing full well that he is headed at high speed to the lowest circle of hell he laughs because Satan is already a close associate and client, and proceeds to draw up a bill that with bring that poor CEO’s dream to life.

This bill, so tainted that contact alone can now give you herpes is deposited on the desk of the Legal Aid. This poor tender soul’s dream of making a positive difference in the lives of millions has been dying a slow death since drafting her first bill, one that allows Medicaid surgical pins for the poor to be crafted from spent nuclear fuel rods. 6 Tears welling in her eyes she passes the bill onto the Intern to be edited.

Unfortunately, the intern really doesn’t care, having realized long ago that no one actually checks any of the work he does before signing his pay check. 7 But in between proving that man’s drive for porn cannot be thwarted by any office filter and stealing his weight in office supplies8 he edits the bill, and inserts no less than three phallic references9 before passing it back to the Legal Aid. She glances longingly at her Handgun before signing off on the bill and sending it to the Legal Specialist. He in turn calls one of the Congressmen he has compromising pictures of. The congressman asks if just once he can pass a bill that helps the American people; he is duly cock slapped.

So chastised, he passes the bill to his Committee. Though a healthcare bill it receives amendments that protect seals, authorize the bombing of Senegal10, and resolve that Walter Crandle of 237 High Street is a total douche. Now approved, the bill heads to The House of Representatives where Nancy Pelosi11 opposes it so everyone else votes for it just out of spite, sending the bill to the Senate. They pass it quickly in order to get onto the much more important “Goddamn It Clerk Send More Champagne Up Here” Act of 2009.

From there the bill makes it to President Obama, who thinks the bill is a piece of shit, but feels kind of awkward about voting it down, what with the whole “Bi-Partisan,” “Cross the Aisle” kind of thing so he quietly signs it in August when nobody notices. And that, boys and girls, is how a bill becomes a law.